


Tarzan of the Doughnuts

by AconitumNapellus



Category: Whose Line Is It Anyway? RPF
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colin is missing home and Ryan tries to cheer him up, but things go a little wrong.</p><p>[A.N. Okay, I have to put in all the disclaimers here. I never intended to write real-person slash. It's not fair to them. And this really isn't very slashy. I just couldn't make myself. It's implied, rather than baldly stated. And I'm sorry. Really I am. I'm sorry, Colin and Ryan. I doubt I'll do this again. Unless I can think of a story which might actually be interesting.</p><p>Please forgive any errors in the text or in characterisation.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tarzan of the Doughnuts

'Col want play Tarzan?'

Ryan's voice was deep, his tone hopefully playful. He had just come back into Colin's hotel room after running a mysterious 'errand,' but Colin had barely noticed his absence. He had just been sitting in preoccupation in front of the dressing table mirror, morosely sipping at his coffee and missing home.

Colin had been in a bad mood all day and Ryan knew it, no matter how hard Colin had tried to hide it. He always knew. Ryan was the grouchy one, the loner, the technophobe who shunned anything but face to face contact, but he always saw these moods in Colin before anyone else.

'Not really,' Colin muttered, taking a mouthful of his coffee and setting it back on the counter. 'Col want sleep,' he said, imitating Ryan's telegraphic Tarzan speak. 'Col want go home.'

He didn't know why he was feeling so crushingly homesick right now. L.A. just seemed too bright, too brash and in your face. He wanted the more muted and subtle warmth of home. He wondered sometimes how Ryan felt able to live somewhere like the US year round.

'Tarzan bring Jane doughnuts,' Ryan said, his voice ever hopeful, bringing out a flimsy cardboard box from behind his back. So that had been his urgent errand. 'Doughnut got hole. Tarzan like hole,' he said wickedly. Colin almost expected him to add, _if you know what I mean_. 'Tarzan give Jane doughnut if Jane put out.'

A snort of laughter escaped Colin's lips. He couldn't help it. He never could help it when Ryan persisted like that. It was like trying to ignore the sun in an L.A. midsummer. It might be annoying but you couldn't deny it was there.

'Oh, just toss me one, Ry,' he said carelessly, holding up a hand.

'Jane no get doughnut unless Jane put out,' Ryan said insistently.

Colin groaned a little. He didn't feel like ridiculous role play, no matter how many laugh he had gained doing it on the studio floor last night. 'Just give me the doughnut, Ryan.' Then he smiled, giving in a little. 'Jane needs sugar.'

'Well, don't we all, honey,' Ryan said, becoming deliberately camp. He minced across the room, a sugared doughnut speared on one finger. His height and his beanpole physique always enhanced his campness to perfect comic effect.

Colin took the doughnut and bit in. The sugar hit was instant. It was probably psychological, but he still felt better.

He looked at himself in the dressing table mirror. All these hotel rooms were the same - the same bland, blond furnishings, the same plasticised finishes, the same level of artificial light and bland curtains giving onto variations of the same view. The only colourful things in the room were Ryan's clothes, and his shoes, which were electric blue and the size of dinghies.

In the mirror Colin looked tired, the skin around his eyes puffy and dark. All that would be hidden by make up tonight, of course. He sometimes thought the show's biggest expense must be on pancake to hide the bags. They had been late to finish last night, and it had been a very physical show.

'So... Jane not want play with Tarzan?' Ryan asked in a wheedling tone as Colin finished the doughnut and picked up another.

'Why do I always have to be the girl?' Colin asked a little plaintively. 'Why do they always assume - ?'

He looked up at Ryan, who shrugged innocently. Colin bit into the second doughnut. Ryan was eating his own. It was leaving sugar on his lips and dusted down the front of his shirt.

'You know, I'd better not eat too many of these or I won't fit the loin cloth,' Colin mused.

Ryan snorted. 'Jane know Tarzan wear loin cloth. Jane wear dress. Real sexy dress, much kahunas,' he reminded him, making the action of hefting large breasts with his hands on his own chest. 'Jane look silly in loin cloth.'

'Oh, yeah. Right,' Colin said, dusting sugar off his fingers distractedly, imaging Ryan in a leopard-print loin cloth. The image made him laugh, but also left him feeling oddly titillated. He wondered if Ry would dress in something like that ever, just to please him.

'Hey, seriously, Col, you wanna go out?' Ryan asked. 'I mean, if you won't play Tarzan and Jane. It's a long time until this evening.'

Colin glanced over to the window, and shrugged. He didn't really feel like going out. He felt like catching a couple hours sleep before the recording later. But on the other hand a healthy mixture of strong coffee and alcohol always combined to add up to a fun performance on the show. Not so much as to appear drunk, but enough to take the edge off the stage fright which always gripped both of them just before they walked out to those blue chairs and red set.

'Yeah, okay,' he said decisively, cramming the remains of the doughnut into his mouth and brushing off his fingers again. 'Yeah, let's go out. Let's hit the bars, or – something.'

'Think you've got the stamina, old man,' Ryan asked, mischievously swatting his hand over Colin's bald spot.

'Hey, I'm only two years older than you. Not even that, actually,' Colin remonstrated, passing his own hand ruefully over his head. 'You'll be bald one day, you know.'

'Oh no, not me,' Ryan said firmly, picking up his wallet and slipping it into his pocket. 'Oh no. I come from a long line of men who hold onto their hair.'

Colin laughed quickly. It sounded like Ryan was protesting a little too much. 'Well, maybe you need the hair to balance out that nose,' he muttered as he grabbed his own wallet and keys, and stood up.

******

The bar was a dive. They'd only chosen it because they were pretty sure that there wouldn't be the Whose Line groupie types in there. The audience usually had half a brain cell between them, at least, and Colin thought there was probably more intelligence in the bacteria on the dirty looking table than there was in the whole clientèle combined. Ryan was deep into his first drink, and picking peanuts casually out of a packet that sat between them on the table.

It was a while before Colin realised that they were attracting attention – after all, it wasn't unusual for someone to recognise them, and he tended to tune it out until they started coming up and begging for photos on their cell phones to spread round all their friends. He could swear that sometimes these pictures arrived on the social networking sites practically before they were taken. This wasn't a Whose Liner, though, or at least he didn't think so. This was a big guy with a beer gut and a beard, and enough tattoos to advertise fifty tattoo parlours. He looked – rough – to put it politely. Ryan's long legs were sticking out into the room because otherwise his knees would have been jammed into the under-surface of the small table, and the man was staring at Ryan's electric blue shoes. Colin watched the man's gaze move upwards, apparently examining Ryan's loud tie now. Ryan had dressed as if he were performing, not as if he were just going out for a couple of drinks.

'You know, Ry, I'm not sure this place was such a good idea,' he said under his breath, trying to draw Ryan's attention to the man in a discreet way.

Ryan looked up, wiping salt from his fingers, and at the same time the stranger finally met Ryan's eyes.

'You guys fags?' he asked bluntly, 'because you're sure dressed like one, buddy.'

Ryan's eyes became hard and cold. Colin glanced at him warily. Neither of them were the type to get into fights, but they wouldn't be pushed around, either. Get into a fight with this guy, though, and they'd probably both end up with their heads through the wall. He would win on bulk alone.

'I'm a comedian,' Ryan said, taking a last gulp from his drink and setting the glass down. He gave a hard, brittle kind of smile. 'You know how to spell that, _buddy_? Because you sure don't look like you can.'

The man stood up. He wavered a little, obviously drunk. Colin watched him in alarm. He was no dwarf at 6'2”, and Ryan was topping out 6'6”, but he had a feeling that this guy would tower over them both. Besides, his friends were starting to turn from their drinks now and listen more attentively to what was going on. Colin touched Ryan's arm and began, 'Hey, Ry – '

'Are you trying to insult me?' the man asked, stepping forward. 'You saying I'm stupid? You gonna come out from behind your girlfriend and say that?'

Ryan pushed the table forward and stood up, Colin not far behind. He could see that Ryan was about to come back with some kind of tartly funny retort. Ryan's anger could be scary. It seemed to come out focussed and white hot, and anyone with enough intelligence knew to back off. The trouble was, they'd already established that this guy didn't have that much intelligence.

'I'm not trying, _buddy_ ,' Ryan said acerbically. 'I'm succeeding. And you don't need me to tell you you're stupid. I'm sure your mirror does that every morning when you pop open your baby blue eyes.'

'Ry,' Colin murmured, looking around to see exactly how close they were to the door. He had always gone with the saying that discretion was the greater part of valour. Bandying insults around was all very well on the sound stage at the studios. That was all in good fun. This was very, very different.

Fists flew. In the chaos he didn't quite see what had happened because he was hitting out as much as the next man, but he had never exactly been the school boxing champion. Ryan gave a horrible kind of half grunt, half cough, and staggered backwards into the wall as the tattooed man let loose his fury. The barman raised his voice above the shouting. Colin picked up a chair, threw it at the growing mob, grabbed at Ryan's arm and yelled, 'Run!'

He half dragged Ryan into the blinding light of an L.A. midday, pulling the door closed behind him as they left just to give them an extra few seconds. He was making towards the more crowded streets, where people were milling and shopping and walking briskly on business. He hoped the gang would leave them alone once there was half a danger of a cop showing up, and he was right. He looked over his shoulder, panting wretchedly, to see the group of men slewing to a halt. They were shouting insults and flicking obscene signs, true, but they had stopped chasing, thank god.

'You okay, Ry?' he asked, turning his attention on his friend, who was wheezing at his side, half bent double.

'Yeah,' Ryan said thickly. 'Yeah, fine.'

'Yeah, you look it,' Colin said critically. 'Come on. Let's get back to our rooms and clean you up.'

As Ryan straightened he saw that there was blood streaming from his nose and down onto that brightly coloured shirt and tie.

'Should have feinted left instead of right,' Ryan said, sounding half apologetic, half abashed. He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a tissue.

'Here,' Colin said, adding his own wad of tissue to what Ryan had, because the blood was soaking through fast. 'Look, let's get a cab,' he decided, stepping toward the edge of the street and starting to try to flag one down. 'Gotta be easier than walking back five blocks in the state you're in.'

******

They were back in Colin's room. Somehow they always ended up in Colin's room. This time Ryan was sitting disconsolately in front of the dressing table mirror, dabbing soaked tissues at his still bleeding nose.

'You think it's broken?' he asked Colin, peering closer into the mirror. He sounded as if he had a thick cold.

'No, I do not think it's broken,' Colin assured him rather tersely. It was the fifth time Ryan had asked. 'You'd know if it was broken. Anyway, I'm sure Doreen will be able to cover it up enough that it won't show on camera.'

He bent down to Ryan's level, studying his reflection just as Ryan had been doing. There was swelling about his nose, sure, but it wasn't too bad. Once the blood was cleaned off it would look a whole lot better.

'You know, this reminds me of a joke,' he said lightly. 'Two Canadians go into a bar...'

Ryan just looked at him, and he trailed off. Colin shrugged. 'Well, I can't be funny every time. Have to save something for tonight.' Then he looked at Ryan, suddenly annoyed. 'Speaking of which, you know, you could have handled that better. I mean, taking on a gorilla like that – '

'He called me a fag,' Ryan protested. 'He called you my girlfriend. Am I supposed to just sit back and take that?'

'You're _supposed_ to be intelligent,' Colin reminded him, refraining from pointing out that Ryan had acted exactly as if Colin _had_ been his girlfriend.

Ryan sniffed, and dabbed at his nose again painfully.

'Tarzan sorry,' he said with half a smile, his reflection looking up at Colin from the mirror. 'Jane forgive Tarzan?'

Colin smiled then, wholly and genuinely. 'Of course Jane forgives Tarzan,' he said. 'Doesn't Jane always forgive Tarzan? Isn't that how the story works? Tarzan does something stupid, Jane forgives Tarzan, Tarzan buys doughnuts, sugar gets everywhere, Jane gets fat...' He harrumphed, looking down at the half-empty doughnut box on the counter. 'Hey, why can't Jane ever be Tarzan, anyway?'

'Tarzan no want Tarzan,' Ryan said emphatically, grinning and then wincing and touching his nose again tenderly. 'Tarzan want Jane. Jane make coffee. Tarzan buy more doughnuts. Tarzan and Jane have quiet afternoon in. Deal?'

Colin clapped a hand on his shoulder, grinning too. 'How about we get the coffee _and_ the doughnuts both from room service. You can put those enormous feet up, and we'll try to get your nose back down to something like its original size by this evening. Is _that_ a deal?'

'That's a deal,' Ryan replied, putting his own hand over Colin's. 'Sounds like the perfect day.'

 


End file.
